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It began with a simple resolution by the Rowan County Board of Education on Sept. 17, pointing out the unfunded costs of Senate Bill 1 and the state’s new assessment system.

Rowan County school board Chairman Bill Redwine told the Morehead News, “Our local legislators know how I and our entire board feel about this issue but (House Speaker) Greg Stumbo, (Senate President) Robert Stivers, and (Governor) Steve Beshear need to hear loud and clear that people are struggling to perform all of the mandates without any of the money."

After the story was picked up by the KSBA eNews Service, Redwine shared a copy of the resolution with KSBA, as did Superintendent Marvin Moore with the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents (KASS). Shortly thereafter, boards in Jessamine County, Morgan County and Owsley County passed similar messages to state leaders.

Since then, a truly grassroots effort has resulted in more than 40 local school boards and superintendents adopting their own resolutions. All have sent the resolutions to their local representatives and senators, but several have sent the position papers to the governor and House and Senate leaders as well.

KSBA and KASS have encouraged all of the state’s 173 school districts to take similar action, especially to educate legislators on the impact of state funding cuts and the lack of adequate funding to cover expenses related to testing and other mandates.

As of Oct. 29, here are the districts whose leaders have reported final action on their local resolutions: (Note: Several have reported planned actions, which will be noted in the next edition of Boardcast in two weeks. Further updates will continue to be made.)

Ashland

Barbourville

Bellevue

Boone

Bowling Green

Breathitt

Cloverport

Corbin

Danville

Elizabethtown

Erlanger-Elsmere

Fayette

Floyd

Frankfort

Gallatin

Garrard

Green

Hardin

Harlan County

Jessamine

Lawrence

Lee

Lincoln

Magoffin

McCracken

McCreary

Menifee

Montgomery

Morgan

Murray

Newport

Owensboro

Owsley

Raceland-Worthington

Rowan

Scott

Simpson

Somerset

Taylor

Walton-Verona

Warren

Washington

Whitley

Wolfe

KSBA’s Governmental Relations team has shared a model resolution, which can be localized, with all superintendents and boards. Additionally, in collaboration with KASS, KSBA is collecting the final board resolutions acted upon to date. Examples of those resolutions are available by contacting Brad Hughes brad.hughes@ksba.org) at KSBA.